Searching In The Storm
by XrhiaX
Summary: The Metacrisis Doctor and Rose Tyler have been living happily in Pete's World for five years when their four-year-old son, Jack, is taken right out from under them. This is the story of the Search for Jack Wilfred Tyler. Posted in Full.
1. One

It's a regular Tuesday for Rose Tyler. Well. Sort of regular. It's hectic - and that's not at all out of the ordinary. Her life has worked out rather domestically, considering the fact that she's married to a instantaneous biological metacrisis version of a nine-hundred-and-something-year-old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous - who, until very recently, hated the idea of all things domestic. Between her and the Doctor, they have a full-time job at Torchwood, which basically means that one of them goes there every day, usually taking it in turns - and they have weekends to themselves, which they usually use for trips forward and backward in time, in their handy time machine.

Said time machine is where they live, mostly. They have a house, kind of. Well. Their TARDIS - still young, an infant sister to the original - is parked in a room at the Tyler Mansion in London, where Vitex Millionaire and alternate version of Rose's father lives with her mother, and her brother, Tony, who is seven now. The room that their TARDIS is parked in, when it isn't traversing time and space, is quite well-furnished; like a living room.

When they have company, they receive them in the room where they keep the TARDIS - never inside the ship. That would just be dumb. Some people will ask about the phone box at the back of the room, but mostly, they don't even see it. The Doctor says that the perception filter is working.

They thought up the outside image on a long rainy night, after a long interlude between the sheets.

_"We could just have the police box again," _Rose suggested with a yawn.

_"But they never even existed in this universe," _the Doctor argued obstinately, tracing circles with a fingertip on Rose's bare upper arm. _"And it's time for a change. The police box was for me, alone, for seven hundred years. It's time for a TARDIS to suit the Doctor and Rose Tyler."_

Rose grinned happily, before they spent a long time in silence, thinking about it, suggesting all manner of weird things - lamp posts, public bins, grit-salt containers, post boxes, cars, etcetera. Rose had an idea, opened her mouth to say it, then stopped, frowning.

_"What? What is it?" _the Doctor asked.

_"Nah, it wouldn't work. You'd be able to see into the TARDIS from outside."_

_"What's your idea?"_

_"Well, you know, they used to have those big red phone boxes, the ones that say 'telephone' on 'em? I thought we could have one of those. Some of them still work, the ones that they fix up and put new phones in - nobody would think twice, even if they _did _see past the perception filter. Except they have glass windows around them, so it won't work."_

The Doctor had been growing a grin on his face, thinking about this. And then he'd kissed the top of her head. _"I could make that work."_

And he has.

Regular phone box on the outside - and through the glass, you can see only an old-timey telephone with a rotary dial (the Doctor is a fan of the retro look) - but with the turn of a key, you pull open the door (pull, not push) and there's the cavernous control room of a fully functional TARDIS.

And even the control room is a little cozier than the original - with wooden lines between the panels on the console, and a jump-seat that looks and feels more like a couch than anything else. There are still hard edges, and the haphazard curve of wires arcing across the domed ceiling, but it's slightly softened by the warm touches. Rose's favorite bit is that the control room has windows all around the outer walls; like the windows of the phone box.

Only one wall panel in the console room _isn't _a window to the outside world, and that's the one housing the hallway into their living area. The ship is smaller than it's older sister, but it has everything they need, and more. The kitchen is cozier, and library has a bigger, heartier fireplace, even if it _does _have fewer books in it. They have a single bedroom, rather than two separate ones, and it's littered with her things and his, since neither of them are fans of tidying up.

And then there's the room right next door to their bedroom - it would have to be right next door, considering all the times that one of them has had to get up in the night to go in there. It's Jack's room. Not Jack Harkness, certainly, but a little boy who they've named after the Captain.

Jack Wilfred Tyler was born four years ago - weighing in at a healthy nine pounds and two ounces, nineteen-and-three-quarters-of-an-inch long with grey eyes and a fuzzy head of brown hair. Four years is a long time, of course - and Jack's grey eyes have since turned brown, closer to Rose's shade than the Doctor's, and his head is now kept warm by a curly mop of chocolate brown hair that he refuses to let anyone trim. The Doctor doesn't help, in that area.

_"It's his hair! He should get to decide how long he wants it!"_

_"He's four years old! And he's not the one who has to comb it out in the morning!"_

And they fight - Rose and her Doctor. Of course they do, they always have. But now the fights are less moral and more practical, and the fallout of these fights lasts longer. It's funny. Rose has once reasoned with him, stopped him from killing a Dalek. And yet, she can't get him to drive a car. She knows why he won't drive a car, though - how could she _not? _He calls them _deathtraps _at every available opportunity.

But things are good. Rose loves her life, and she knows that the Doctor does too. They love their son, and they love their weekends in time and space, showing little Jack planets and events that nobody he goes to school with will ever get to see. They love their TARDIS, which was their first adventure in parenthood; with the Doctor up at all hours soothing the TARDIS as it grew accustomed to its new mechanical components, as he added them, bit by bit. They love being close to Jackie and Pete, even if the Doctor won't admit it. They love watching Tony playing with Jack.

"Ro-ose?" a voice calls out, and Rose whacks her head on the machinery under the TARDIS console.

"Hey, Mum," she tries not to sound too irritated, a hand coming up to rub her forehead, as she hears the front door of the phone box swinging shut behind Jackie.

She's not doing anything important - just taking a look at the heating system. She's been hearing a rattling noise lately, whenever she turns on the heating. She knows how to fix a leak in a fuel tank, thanks to Mickey, and the Doctor would doubtless be impressed if she got that fixed.

"God, you're turning into that bloody alien," Jackie says from above, but Rose can hear that her mother is smiling as she says it. "Speaking of him, where is he?"

Rose frowns, curling her fingers around a bar above her head and hanging her arm from it briefly. "What do you mean? He's at Torchwood. It's his day today."

Jackie is silent for a moment.

Rose sighs and turns her wrist to take a look at the watch the Doctor gave her for their second anniversary. "Is Jack with you?" she asks curiously, poking a finger at the tube coming out of the fuel tank under the console. Jackie is supposed to pick Jack up from school, most days. Unless Rose calls and tells her that she's going to pick up the kids - Jack and Tony are at the same primary school - then Jackie is in charge of that. "School's out - you didn't forget, did you?"

Rose has forgotten, before. Only once. Jack was in tears and Tony wouldn't speak to her for three days. Pete had ended up picking them up, a full two hours after they'd been standing on the curb, waiting for their ride home. Tony is like a big brother to Jack, and they hold hands almost as often as Rose and the Doctor do.

_"Hey, careful!" _she remembers Tony saying sharply to Jack, yanking him back onto the pavement by his hand. _"You could get hit by a car!"_

Rose sighs a smile of her own.

Jackie exhales like she's putting her hands on her hips. "Well, I got Tony. Jack wasn't there - the teacher said his dad came and picked him up already, before I got there."

Rose nods slowly, poking again at the fuel tube, pulling her mouth to one side. That's not right, she thinks. Is it leaking? Or maybe there's a bolt rattling around? Then she freezes, and whacks her head again on the metal components under the console.

"Rose?" Jackie asks.

"How could the Doctor pick 'im up?" Rose blurts suddenly, eyes wide. She maneuvers her way out from under the console, and when she comes out, she guesses she's got some oil on her face, because Jackie gives her a judging look. But Rose ignores it. "He doesn't have a _car_," she reminds her mother, face going ashen. She feels her gut twisting. Oh, god, something's happened. The teachers at the school don't even know what the Doctor looks like - for all they know …

Rose grabs the edge of the console. Someone's … has someone _taken _him?

"Oh my god," Jackie says, her face awash with concern.

At once, they pluck their phones from their pockets and start making calls. At that moment, Tony runs into the TARDIS.

"Tony!" Rose blurts, lunging forward and grabbing his shoulders. "What happened? Where's Jack?" she asks, her panic already writing itself on her face.

"I don't know!" Tony answers loudly, obviously just as upset. "When I got out of class, the teachers said Jack already went with his dad, and I couldn't find him, I thought the Doctor had already gotten him or …" the boy sniffs hard and then smacks his hand to his face, "I'm sorry, I …"

Rose hugs him, and he starts to cry. She looks over her shoulder to Jackie, who's on the phone already, waiting.

Then Jackie exhales quickly. "Doctor!" she says.

Rose doesn't hear what her husband says, but she can tell that it's smarmy.

Jackie shushes him. "Doctor, is Jack with you?" she asks sharply.

The phone is silent. The next thing, she does hear. _"He's supposed to be with you!" _in a high-pitched, worried tone.

Jackie swallows hard, and she looks guilty. Her brows tilt, and she lifts her hand to the side of her face. "I …" she starts, but then Rose hears the Doctor shouting on the other side of the phone.

_"Where is he? Jackie, __**where's my son**__? I'm coming home!" _he's yelling, and he's obviously upset.

Rose inhales suddenly, realizing she's forgotten to breathe. Tony bawls into her shoulder, moaning out how sorry he is. Rose squeezes him in her arms, thankful to have someone to hold onto. Her mind is already reeling, listing off places her son could be, people who could have him, people who might _want _to take him - things that could happen to him. She tries to breathe again, but she can't.

_My baby, _she thinks. And she swears she's having a heart attack.

* * *

"Come on," the stranger coos, wiggling his pudgy fingers at Jack.

Jack looks at him, confused. This isn't dad. And it's _certainly _not mum. He stays where he is, sat in the back seat of the stranger's car. Mum has a car. Sometimes she gets out of the car, and leaves him in the back seat for a little while, and then she comes back, and they go home. Yes. He'll stay in the car, and mum will come back.

Tony says not to talk to strangers. He didn't really have much choice in the matter, earlier, when the stranger picked him up from school and told his teachers that he was 'dad'. The stranger picked him up under the arms, like mum and dad and granddad and granny do, and he's not supposed to wiggle when he gets picked up like that - because once, he did it while granddad was carrying him, and granddad dropped him, and it really hurt.

"What's your name?" the stranger asks, leaning over the open door into the car.

Jack watches him warily. He doesn't like stranger. He's a liar - Tony says lying is bad. Stranger lied to the teachers and said that he was Jack's dad, and he isn't. Jack feels a little bit scared. He wants dad. He sticks his hands between his knees and looks away from stranger.

"Don't be like that!" the stranger laughs, and sticks his hand into his pocket. "My name's Roger."

Jack thinks he's still a stranger. He knows lots of people's names, but that doesn't make them not strangers. Jack doesn't look at the stranger, instead, looking out the other windows of the car. The car is dirty. Mum's car is always clean. This isn't mum's car. Jack is worried. Maybe mum won't come back to this car. There are wrappers on the seats and floor of this car, and out the windows, he can see the brick walls of an alleyway.

Stranger starts to get nervous. "Stop sulking now, little boy - we've got to get moving," he says, sounding angry, but Jack doesn't listen. He screws up his face and then glares at the stranger. He wants to go home, to the TARDIS. In the back of his head, he can feel his dad is worrying, panicking. Poor dad. Sorry, dad. "Don't look at me like that, you little brat!" stranger snaps, and Jack draws up his shoulders.

Stranger won't hit him. Nobody's ever hit him before - except another kid on the playground. Tony says he got smacked a few times when he was younger, like when he'd drawn on the wall in granny's house, or wet the bed. But mum and dad don't smack Jack. When Jack does wrong, dad gives him bad-feelings, with their telepathy. He doesn't like bad-feelings, so he tries not to do wrong.

But stranger looks angry. Jack thinks stranger might hit him. He remembers what granny once said to Tony, after picking them up one day. Tony had gotten a black eye from another boy on the playground, actually the same one who's hit Jack in the past. The boy's name is Kyle.

_"I don't want you - and that goes for __**both **__of you - to be the one to throw the first hit, ever! D'you 'ear me?" _granny said, while driving, _"But you'd better bloody well throw the __**last **__hit, or they'll keep picking on you."_

The next day, Jack remembers that Kyle tried to steal Tony's lunch sweets, and then hit him. And Tony knocked out Kyle's front tooth. Kyle doesn't bother them anymore.

Stranger grabs Jack's arm, and yanks him out of the car. Jack cries out, and tries to wiggle free - this is wrong. People don't pick him up like this. Stranger's pudgy fingers are tight around Jack's bare upper arm, and through the skin, he can feel that stranger is giving off bad-feelings. Stranger is going to hurt him, hurt him bad.

Jack is very scared.

* * *

They call the police. They call Torchwood. They call in a few favors all across the world - with UNIT, and the CIA, and a black-ops group in Russia that nobody's supposed to know about, all people they've helped in the past. Rose and the Doctor suit up for interrogations, but they are immediately slapped with prohibiting phrases like 'conflict of interest' and 'subjective viewpoint'. All the while, they argue, and shout at one another.

_"Your _mother was supposed to pick him up!" the Doctor barks across the back seat of the police van, on their way to Torchwood Tower, with a police escort. "If she hadn't been so late to pick him up, he'd be safe right now! What the hell was she busy doing? Getting her nails done?!"

Rose is close to tears, but she is not going to let him walk all over her - not now. If she breaks, she won't be able to fix herself again. She's terrified, and he's not helping. "Don't you blame my mum for this!" Rose seethes back at him, clenching her fists. "If _you'd _picked him up from school, just _once, _the teacher would've known whoever nabbed him wasn't his dad!"

_"Oh, __**God,**_are we going to turn this into another argument about me not driving? Really, Rose?" the Doctor drawls out viciously, and throws his gaze away from her, out the window of the police van, to the pouring rain outside. He clenches his jaw and clasps his hands on the fabric of his seat. "I can feel him," he breathes out tensely. "He's terrified," he rubs his hand over his mouth and then threads it roughly through his hair.

Rose taps her foot anxiously. The shouting subsides into terse silence, both of them thinking over all the things that could happen to their child, all the people who would take him - all the mistakes they might have made to lead to this. This has to be someone's fault, and it's certainly not little Jack's.

Rose thinks of all the people, and aliens, she's put away in the past for inhumane (using the term loosely) actions against sentient creatures and the like. The Doctor thinks of all the people in the universe who might want to run painful tests on a Human-Time Lord hybrid child to see what they could gain.

The police van pulls up in front of Torchwood Tower, and out the blackout windows, they can see that the media have already caught wind of the story. It must be the story of the year, the Doctor thinks bitterly; the toddler grandson of the Torchwood director, going missing from his primary school - kidnapped, taken right out from under their nose - so simply. Why was it so easy, the papers will ask - why didn't anyone see it coming? Surely, with two Torchwood agents as parents and a whole security detail just for the Vitex mansion, _someone _should've known, right?

The paparazzi swarm like hornets outside the police van, and as the police force them back behind the press barriers, Rose looks over to her husband, her thumbnail in her mouth so she can chew on it. The Doctor looks tense - furious, and at the same time, terrified. He's always been her rock - and she's always been his - but neither of them is strong, right now.

"How did this happen?" Rose asks quietly, her voice breaking.

The Doctor draws a shaking breath, and presses his mouth into a thin line. He slides his hand across the back seat of the police van and wraps it around hers, threading their fingers together. He swallows the lump in his throat. "I don't know," he chokes.

The police open the doors for them, and they step out, hand in hand. The media assaults them - there's no other word for it. They ask questions that have already stormed through their heads for the last two hours. _How are you going to find your son? Who do you think took him? What do they want him for? Is this a revenge plot? Why hasn't there been a ransom call? Who do you think is to blame for this? Why didn't your son have a security detail?_

The police clear a path up the steps into the building, and both the mother and father of the missing boy stay silent, unwilling to answer any questions put to them. They don't have the answers. They don't know - they just don't know. And that's the most terrifying bit. At the very least, the Doctor knows that Jack is still alive, and awake. He'll know, if they kill his little boy; he'll know, because it will hurt him too. Not just mentally, but physically. He'll feel it. And he's on the edge of his seat right now, terrified that they might do it at any moment. He wonders if Jack knows what's going on.

They file into the tower, across the lobby and into the lift.

The Doctor looks over to his wife, whose hand is sweaty in his. She's biting worriedly at her thumbnail, and usually he finds that adorable, but right now it just puts him even more on edge. He needs a shoulder to lean on, and she can't do that, not right now. He squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back, seeming absent. He can tell what she's thinking - knows the look on her face, because he's wearing it too. She's thinking of all the things that could be happening to Jack. She's thinking that she should have seen this coming. She's thinking that she should have kept him safer.

"He's alive," the Doctor says quietly. "At least there's that," he tries to sound reassuring.

Rose swallows. "For how long?" she asks, eyes fixed on the floor indicator in the lift. "I could've …" she breathes, her lower lip curling over momentarily - and she might just break, for a second - but then she looks at him and steels herself. "I wasn't doing anything. I could've gone to pick him up, if I'd known mum was late. I could've," she tells him, eyes burning with tears.

The Doctor breathes in deeply, remembering the eleven months that she spent carrying Jack, the sixteen hours she spent in painful labor, and then the excruciating birth - the screaming. He remembers all that she went through, and he remembers her crying in his arms the night their son was born - crying out of fear that she wouldn't be a good mother. And he remembers how the pink, wrinkly baby in their arms, sucking on her sore breasts and waking them up in the middle of the night, made it all worthwhile.

The Doctor remembers Jack saying 'Dad' for the very first time. He remembers him reaching out telepathically for the first time. He remembers Jack's first steps, his favorite color, his favorite flavor froot-shoot. And he realizes that after all that, someone has come along and might just decide to kill their baby boy, simply because _they can._

The lift opens, and they bundle themselves out into the hallway, and down it, and straight into the crowded conference room.

* * *

They stop, just inside the conference room, and survey the people here. There are people from all over the world, who have somehow managed to get here within the two hours since they discovered that Jack was missing.

"We transmatted them in," Pete says, and Jack's parents look to see the Director at the head of the table, hands on its surface. He gives a weak smile. "Everyone wants to help."

The Doctor nods weakly, and threads his hand roughly through his hair again. "What do we know?" he asks, approaching the table. There are no briefs, no papers - no written down information. They're all going on brainpower. Usually, that's not a problem for the Doctor, but today, he worries that it won't be enough. "Have you spoken to the teacher at the school?"

Two people at the table - who the Doctor recognizes as Ari Dorohkov and Michael Bragin from the Russian Extraterrestrial Intelligence Unit - RETIU - get up and offer their chairs to him and Rose, and he gives a thankful smile to them. There are plenty of people standing around on their feet, thanks to the shortage of chairs at the table. He takes a seat, and Rose takes the one next to him.

"Yes, we have," Stella Davis, leader of the CIA team that Torchwood is allied with (thanks to a past adventure of Rose's, before the Doctor joined Rose in this universe) says, standing against one wall in the room with her arms crossed over her chest. "She describes the man who took Jack as a tall, bulky white man, with dark hair. He drove off in a silver sedan, headed south. There was no-one in the car aside from him and the child."

Rose finds that she doesn't feel any better, the more she learns. "Do we have any footage of them leaving? Security cameras, CCTV - Christ, do we have a _plate number, _maybe?" she asks hopefully, sitting forward in her chair.

Another agent, this time, one from UNIT, who is seated to the left of the table, speaks. "We got a silver sedan speeding through a speed-check zone, about half an hour after the abduction, and snapped the plate number. Unfortunately, we've located the car now - it was abandoned in an alley."

Rose blinks at this, exhaling heavily, face pale. "So we have no idea where they are?" she asks weakly, shoulders sagging.

"The car is registered to a Patricia Morris, reported stolen about three months ago. We can't trace the car to the man who took your son," Agent Dorohkov begins, brows tilted apologetically, and Rose and the Doctor have to look over their shoulders to meet his gaze, "But so far, the evidence suggests that this man isn't working with any sort of organization."

That's supposed to be good, the Doctor thinks. It means that maybe it's just some whacko that's taken Jack - not someone who wants money, or someone who wants to use him as bait for Torchwood. But the Doctor feels his throat tightening all the same. He knows that this means it'll be harder to find Jack. First they have to identify the man who took him - and they haven't even done that. He also knows that if it's _just some whacko, _it might be the kind of whacko who likes to _touch_ little boys like his son. His gut clenches uncomfortably.

"There hasn't been any ransom call to the house," Pete says seriously, drawing a breath - and Rose can tell that he's on edge, too - then frowns, "Have either of you gotten anything on your mobiles?"

Rose and the Doctor have checked their phones a hundred times since Jack went missing, partly in waiting for said ransom call, partly because the Doctor made sure to teach Jack both their mobile numbers before even teaching him to count - which is, incidentally, why Jack thinks that four comes after eight. But they take out their phones again and check once more. There is nothing.

They lay the phones on the table - and both their home-screen photographs are of Jack, grinning. They slide the phones to the middle of the table, like adding their chips to the pot in a poker game. Every heart in the room breaks a little bit for the grinning face on the screen. And everyone in the room wants to bring him home.

"We'll stay. Until we find your son, not a single one of us are leaving," Gwen Cooper, head honcho from Torchwood Three says, smiling sadly at Rose and the Doctor, leaning against the window with her hands tucked behind her backside. The wide-mouthed man at her side looks a little bit annoyed, but nobody else argues.

"I second that," a man from German Intergalactics - GIG - says with an agreeing nod. "We'll work into the night."

There are murmurs of approval, and a hand lands on Rose's shoulder. She looks up to see Agent Bragin, smiling reassuringly at her. She gives a watery smile of her own and covers his hand with hers.

Pete nods, leans over, and presses a button on the intercom beside him. "Julie, we're going to need coffee - en masse."

_"Right away, director."_

* * *

It's four AM before the adrenaline and stress of worrying for thirteen hours straight finally gets to Rose and the Doctor. Pete grabs the Doctor by the upper arms and tells him they need sleep. The Doctor argues that he doesn't need nearly as much sleep as humans do, but Pete will hear none of it - the Doctor is exhausted, and Pete knows it. Then Rose argues that everyone else will be working through the night, so why can't they?

Pete doesn't have an answer for her, but threatens that if they don't leave, he'll have them escorted out by security.

So they leave. Some devoted paparazzi are waiting outside, but one glare from the Oncoming Storm - tired though he may be - is enough to send them packing. Jackie pulls her car to the front of Torchwood Tower, and they climb in. A whole new can of worms is opened; the Doctor shouts and yells and screams at her - and _blames her, _and that's the worst. Rose is too tired to speak, to tell him to stop.

It ends with Jackie crying, and apologizing, and when they finally get home, she pads away from them, so overcome with guilt and grief that she can't even stand her own company. The Doctor rips off his suit jacket and flings it to the floor on the way to the TARDIS, with Rose at his side. She says nothing, just raking her fingers through her hair for the umpteenth time today.

When he looks over at her, she doesn't say anything - just gives him this _look._

"What?" he snaps at her. They come to the top of the stairs and she walks in the wrong direction, away from the TARDIS - away from him. "Where are you going?" he asks accusingly.

"To see Tony," Rose breathes quietly.

The Doctor stops, tenses and then clenches his jaw. "I might do the same," he grinds out maliciously - because he has a thing or two to say to Tony; Tony, who should've said something as soon as he heard Jack had gone missing, who should have known that Jack was supposed to go home with him.

Rose suddenly whirls around and points a finger at him. Her eyes are red and puffy, in addition to the dark circles, and she bares her teeth at him like she is just _sick _of him. "Don't, you, _dare,_" she seethes at him, her voice coming out over a lump in her throat, "Don't you dare to the same to him as you did to my mum, you _cruel bastard_."

The Doctor is taken aback, and his face suddenly pales.

"I should've said something, you know - but I'm _so tired. _I just haven't got the energy to argue with the Oncoming Storm," she chokes out, and her eyes fill with tears, "But I swear to god, if you even think about blaming _Tony _for this, I'll …" she clenches her hands ineffectually, and then exhales heavily, trailing off. What will she do? What can she do? She can't do anything. She's helpless. She sniffs hard, flattening her palm over her forehead, because she won't cry. She won't let herself.

The Doctor stands at the top of the stairs, watching her. His eyes drop to the floor, and he thinks about this. God, she's right. It's not Jackie's fault. She's picked the kids up late before, and nothing happened. How could she have known? How could any of them have known? But there's got to be someone he can blame, because he's so scared, and so angry. Anything could happen.

And Jack is still awake, in the back of his mind - still awake, and still scared, and afraid to fall asleep without his mum and dad close to him. God, he's never been away from them, never even had a sleepover. And they're no closer to finding him than they were ten hours ago.

The Doctor chokes out a ragged breath, a hand coming up and covering his mouth and nose. His face reddens, and his eyes fill with saltwater. He chokes again, and this time it's a sob. His legs waver under him, and his whole body hurts - his chest, his stomach, his head, his arms and legs. He presses his palms into his eye-sockets and sobs again, and his tears wet the heels of his hands. His whole body racks and shudders.

He's so scared - so worried. His little boy, the little boy he's sung Gallifreyan lullabies to, and taught to spell, and carried on his back, is missing. The thing most precious to him, even more precious than Rose - and Rose wouldn't mind, because he knows that Jack is more important to her than he is, just how it should be - has been taken, right out of his schoolyard. He's supposed to protect that little boy. Rose is right. If he had picked him up from school just _once, _this wouldn't have happened.

He sinks down and sits on the top step of the staircase, hunching over and burying his face in his hands, crying. Rose sinks to her knees beside him and puts her hand on his arm. He drags in a gasp for breath and tears his wet face from his palms, to look at her. How can she be so strong? How has she kept herself together all day? The Doctor drops his hand and grasps hers.

"Who would do this?" he whispers desperately, scrubbing his other hand through his hair so hard that some hairs come out between his fingers. "Why? Why would someone take him?" he asks her, because please, god, **_someone_**has to have some answers. His voice breaks and his face twists again, as more tears pour down his cheeks.

Rose wraps him in her arms, and holds her head to her chest, rocking him slowly - and he cries until he can't cry anymore.

And then his awareness of Jack's mind fades into nothingness; silence, blackness. The space in his mind where Jack is supposed to be is suddenly empty. He tries to tell himself that his baby boy is just asleep, that he's finally fallen asleep, but he's so scared. That part of his mind is cold and empty, and Jack-less. And he finds that he has some more tears to shed.

* * *

On the second day, Rose wakes up early in the morning, her head on the Doctor's chest, and the buttons of his striped button-up pajamas leaving indentations in her cheek, on instinct. She's usually awake at this hour, to get Jack up and ready for school. But he's not here. The Doctor is dead to the world. God, she doesn't know how long he cried last night. She remembers falling asleep around six, and when she looks over the Doctor's torso to the clock, she sees that it's not quite seven.

She really should go back to sleep - she needs to rest. She won't be any good to anyone if she's exhausted.

Rose closes her eyes again and tries to fall back to sleep. The Doctor's single heart beats beneath her ear, his chest rising in falling, and her arm is draped over him. His hands are holding onto the fabric of her own spotted pajamas, unwilling to let her go. She tilts her head up and opens her eyes briefly, to see his face contorted with unease. He's having a nightmare. Rose closes her eyes again.

She remembers when Jack was first born, and keeping him in the bed with them as a baby. It was so much easier that way - no more running back and forth to the crib whenever he cried. And he slept through the night so much more often when he was close to them. She would lie on her side, without her shirt on, and when he got a little older, he'd suckle when he was hungry without even waking her.

Rose inhales deeply through her mouth, blinks away the tears in her eyes and furrows her brow.

She remembers waking up one morning to the image of her baby boy sprawled in his onesie on the Doctor's bare chest, both of them deep in sleep, the Doctor with his head tilted back, his pillow shifted from behind his head to his side - a precaution to make sure Jack didn't fall off him and onto the floor, no doubt - and Jack with his cheek smushed into the Doctor's skin, drooling on his father.

Rose curls her legs closer to her chest, sidling closer to the Doctor. She's not going to cry. She is _not _going to cry.

* * *

They head back to Torchwood Tower as soon as the Doctor wakes up, at ten o'clock - Rose never does manage to fall back asleep after waking up. She doesn't know whether he talked to her mother, but she does see him coming from Jackie's bedroom with the car keys and mildly rueful look on his face. Rose drives. On the way, as they scarf down a cheap gas-station breakfast, they hear breaking news about the case on the radio; the name of the man who took their son. Roger Edwards. They both wrack their minds, trying to remember whether they've ever angered anyone called Roger Edwards in their Torchwood exploits. Or even anyone with the last name Edwards. They come up with nothing.

When they get to Torchwood Tower, the crack team is still working tirelessly. Some of them have crashed out in the lounge rooms, or taken brief naps to keep them charged, and neither Rose nor the Doctor can blame them. But now, a handful of them look hopeless. That bothers Rose. She has to believe they'll find Jack.

There's a manhunt out for Roger Edwards, and the news - according to the television now set up in the conference room, which has now become a crisis center - is calling Jack's disappearance a national tragedy. Most of the primary schools in the area have had to close for the day, since hardly anyone has sent their children to school today. It was so easy - abducting Jack Tyler from his school - and everyone has seen how it could easily have been their own child. Roger Edwards' name and picture is all over the news, right next to little Jack's.

_'If you see Roger Edwards or Jack Tyler, call the number on-screen, or your local police'._

Reports are coming in of sightings of Roger Edwards - none of Jack, yet, but the team is optimistic.

Edwards is the same height as the Doctor, possibly an inch or two shorter, but bulky. He's got pasty skin, pockmarked with acne scars, and has facial hair, just a moustache and small beard, the same color as his scruffy dark hair. He was seen in a dark hooded sweatshirt and a baseball cap. He looks like a goon, to Rose's trained eye. He's been in trouble with the law before - driving under the influence and aggravated assault.

But is he acting alone? If he is, is that good?

The Doctor dives in with the Russian Intelligence Unit, helping them pore through the calls and security footage they've got hold of, on their laptops, lined up on the conference table. Rose is at a loss for the longest time, just hanging back and watching everyone functioning, when for her, the world has completely come to a halt. That boy, that little boy is her life. She looks outside, to see that it's still raining. She feels so useless, so helpless. They have the best intelligence people from all over the world in one building, and all they've gotten is a face and a name.

Then a swarm of fluorescent yellow marches into the conference room. It's Stella Davis from CIA, and Gwen Cooper from Torchwood Three, and a handful of other brilliant agents, and some local police - all kitted out in their reflective coats. And Rose knows what she can do. She'll join the manhunt, join the search.

"Pete," Rose says, grabbing the spare yellow coat that one of the police officers is holding - they came here looking to recruit more field agents, and that's exactly what Rose is good at - and shucking her leather jacket. Pete looks up from where he's working with a UNIT member and sees her pulling on the coat. He simply sighs. "I'm going with them," Rose tells him curtly - there's no room for argument.

Pete glances from her to where the Doctor is working with RETIU, obviously throwing himself in just as much as Rose wants to. Then he gives a wan smile and nods to Rose. "Be careful. It's raining hard enough to flood out there."

Rose snorts. "Then I'll swim," she answers dryly, zipping up her coat and pulling the hood over her hair.

She crosses the room, to the filing cabinet that's supposed to hold papers, pulls open the bottom drawer, and takes out a standard-issue firearm. Stella and Gwen both have guns, as do the police officers. She feels the power of holding a gun flooding through her as she straps it to her belt. The swarm of yellow turns and marches out of the room.


	2. Two

The word comes in that they've got Roger Edwards at six fourteen PM.

There is a lot of cheering and back patting, until the word also comes in that they haven't found Jack.

Pete has someone bring the Doctor to a room behind some one-way glass, looking into an interrogation room on the prisoner floor of Torchwood Tower, and lets him wait there while they bring in Roger Edwards. He leans against the back wall of the room and tucks his hands into his pockets. Jack is awake, and still scared. He wishes he knew more than that, but he doesn't. He wishes he knew if Jack was being fed, if he was hurt, but he's only half Time-Lord now, and Jack is only a quarter - it makes their telepathy vague, at best.

Rose bursts into the room not twenty minutes after the Doctor - soaking wet and breathing hard, like she's run all the way here from wherever she was. She tumbles right into his arms, staring at him, hair sticking to her neck and face and her coat heavy on her shoulders. She grasps his forearms in a panic.

"What did they tell you?" she asks quickly, eyes flicking between his, "What do you know? Did they find him? Have they got Jack? Doctor, talk to me!" she yells desperately, and because she's been soaked in the rain, he finds it hard to tell whether or not she's been crying.

The Doctor stares at her, his expression pallid, and bites down on his tongue. "Its just Edwards. They didn't find Jack," he tells her quietly.

She seems to shrink in his arms, eyes falling down and any hope on her features falling away. She shakes, and hangs her head, and breathes out. Then she disentangles herself from him and rakes back her wet hair from her face. She steps backwards, until her back hits the wall, and tilts her head back, squeezing her eyes shut. She might be crying now, the Doctor thinks - but he'd never know.

Then there's noise beyond the one-way glass, and they both snap their attention to it - to see two policemen wrestling Roger Edwards into the chair in the room, cuffing his hands behind his back. They stand beside the door, and Pete walks in, circling around to the interrogation table, smoothing his tie carefully. Rose's hand slips into the Doctor's, needing to be holding onto someone.

Roger Edwards grins at the one-way glass - at them, even despite the obvious cuts on his face that show that the police have given him a smack around. The Doctor clenches his jaw so hard that his face aches. Rose feels heat spreading across her shoulders. This is him, then. This is the man who took their baby. He's done something to their son - hidden him or something. Rose looks over to the Doctor, and his mouth is curved downward. If Jack was dead, he'd feel it. He'd tell her. So Jack is alive.

"You're the bloke who kidnapped my grandson, then," Pete says coolly, narrowing his eyes at Edwards.

Edwards leans back in his seat, still grinning. "That would be me," he answers smugly. God, he doesn't even have the decency to deny it, Rose thinks. How could someone do a thing like this? Why? What for? What makes a person so sick that they would hurt a child?

Pete gives him a smile of his own, and then coldly puts his hands on the table between them. "Why?" he queries threateningly.

Edwards grin stretches wider and he chuckles sickly under his breath, twisting his bloody lips in a smirk. He pushes out his tongue and licks his lips, and Rose feels her hands balling at her sides. Her breaths come in short gasps. She's been cracking since she first heard Jack was missing, and she's just about ready to break, she thinks.

"He was beautiful," Edwards tilts his head tauntingly at Pete, who visibly blanches. "His little body, his little face …" he drawls, then trails off with another chuckle. "Perfect."

Rose's stomach is churning, and the Doctor is squeezing her hand so tight that she might lose circulation to her fingers. Her eyes are burning again, and she can't stop herself from crying forever. She has to be weak eventually. She's got to break. She's going to snap. It's just too much. She just wants her little boy safe. That's not too much to ask, is it? And then there's this man, sitting in the room in front of her, grinning and laughing as he talks about her son, who he took right out from under her - and teasing about **_touching_** Jack.

She knows how the Doctor felt last night - when he was taking it out on Jackie, and almost on Tony. Now she knows. He was furious, and so is she. She looks to one side. There's a door, she notices; a door from this room into the interrogation room. And she's angry.

Pete scowls at Edwards. "So you just stole him to satisfy your own sick mind?" he hisses, leaning down over the other man. Oh, and Edwards visibly doesn't like this - the way Pete is on his feet, standing over him with _power. _The Doctor can see it in the man's eyes - he's uncomfortable. Edwards doesn't answer, so Pete turns away, pacing around the table. "Where is he now? Leave him in the car? Dump him by the side of the road?"

Edwards smirks again and looks down. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

And Rose finally breaks.

She draws in a sharp breath and yanks her hand free of the Doctor's. Her husband looks at her, immediately sensing something is wrong. She bares her teeth and grabs the door handle, twisting the knob and yanking it open. She marches into the interrogation room, and she smacks her hand to her belt, sliding the gun from its holster with expert ease. Pete shouts, and Edwards shouts, eyes widening and obviously afraid at the way she comes at him - like a beast, like a wild wolf, a wild, feral, angry, _bad wolf_ - and the policemen at the door move to intervene on instinct alone. But they're too slow for the likes of Rose Tyler.

And then she has Edwards on his feet, pressed against the wall, the chair he's cuffed to now dangling at his side from his wrists. One hand, the hand the Doctor was just holding, is wrapped up in his hoodie, holding him by the fabric, pushing him into the wall with a balled fist against his chest, and the other holds the gun to the man's throat. _I'll do it, _she thinks. _If he doesn't tell me where to find my little boy, I will paint this room with his brain._

"Stand down, Agent Tyler," Pete tells her firmly, but nobody moves, because one wrong move, and she'll pull the trigger.

Edwards swallows against the end of Rose's gun. "L-l-l-lemme g-go," he sputters, breaking out in a sweat.

Rose presses the gun harder into his neck. "Yeah?" she asks smoothly, breathing hard, "Is that what **_Jack_** told you? Did he ask you to _let him go_?" she leans up and gets in his face, eyes wide and wild and _unhinged. _"_Hmm_?" she squeaks out, and her finger twitches on the trigger.

The Doctor steps in through the thrown-open door between the interrogation room and the observation room. He draws a slow breath, and watches the scene with a blank expression. Slowly, he slides his hands into his trouser pockets.

"Doctor, she's about to _commit __**murder**__,_ you want to _step in_?" Pete throws him a desperate, but somehow collected look.

The Doctor tilts his head back a little, fixing his eyes on Edwards. He narrows his eyes a little bit, and ignores what Pete just said. Edwards is looking past Rose to him. "My wife asked you a question," he says darkly, mouth contorting in distaste.

Edwards' eyes flick back to Rose's, still wide and dangerous. He opens his mouth and stammers out, "He didn't say an-anything. H-he was quiet."

Rose gives a broken laugh under her ragged breath, turning the gun on its side a little bit. The laughter falls away like a silicone mask. Edwards winces, whimpering. "Tell me where he is," she demands seriously, and the corners of her mouth quirk downward, "Or I'll kill you." She threatens. She'll do it. She knows she will. She's killed before. Edwards just stares at her for a beat longer, and she reaches up with her thumb. She clicks back the hammer.

"_Agent Tyler, __**stand down**_!" Pete shouts authoritatively.

"Step _away_ from the suspect, Miss Tyler!" one of the policemen shouts, and they both draw out their own guns.

"Oh, god, please - someone get her off me!" Edwards cries out, squeezing his eyes shut.

Rose flashes her teeth at the man in her death grip, jutting her gun into his jugular. "_Where is my son_?!" she screams at him. _"__**Where is he**__?!"_

And the Doctor is silent. What she does, she does. She knows what she's doing. Maybe she's lost it a little bit - he knows that he has - but if she thinks that this man can tell them where to find their son, he knows she won't kill him. But if she thinks he won't talk, and she would have to be one hundred per cent sure, then she will shoot; this, he knows, too. Pete throws him another dark, desperate, and at the same time, judgmental, look, and the Doctor returns only the dark, blank look on his own face.

Edwards opens and closes his mouth a few times, trying to form words, but they taper off under the heavy gaze of Rose Tyler. "I …" he sputters out, and Rose's lips press into an impatient line, "I …" he tries again, and this time the corners of his mouth curve upward. And he laughs into Rose Tyler's face. Rose jabs the gun into him again, an unspoken threat, but he laughs. "I'm not gonna talk," he giggles at her.

Rose eyes are wide, and now she's sweating. Her face twists again, but this time her expression is anguished. _"Tell me," _she insists, her voice choked.

Edwards chuckles against the nose of the gun. _"No."_

Rose blinks at him, breathing hard through her nose, eyes wide in horror, rather than desperation. Her brows furrow, like she doesn't quite understand. And she fingers the trigger on the gun, considering. _Do it, _her mind whispers. _Do it, do it, do it. _Rose feels herself sagging a little bit, eyes still searching Edwards' own.

And she drops open her mouth, and gasps out, "Please."

She won't do it. She's not that kind of woman.

Edwards stays silent, and grins at her.

Rose slowly releases him, swallows, and stumbles back, the gun falling from her hand, clattering on the floor. One police officer grabs Edwards and shoves him back into the interrogation chair, and the other gets behind Rose to yank her arms behind her back. He doesn't cuff her, but holds her arms there, and Pete opens the door for him to frog-march her out of the room. Rose's whole body seems to go limp, her head hanging and her eyes staring at the floor. The Doctor sighs heavily, eyes fixed on his wife for the moment.

And then he looks to Edwards, who is still grinning.

"Sir, what do you want me to do with her?" the police officer holding Rose asks Pete.

Pete breathes out and looks to the Doctor. "Take her home, Doctor. She's obviously not fit to be here."

The Doctor sighs, nods, and follows the police officer and Rose out of the room.

* * *

"I was going to do it," Rose croaks from the passenger seat of Pete's car, still soaking wet, still wearing her fluorescent yellow police coat like it's become her armor.

The Doctor is driving. There's an argument here to be made, for him not driving, but neither of them has even a fraction of brain space to think of something so trivial. Pete has lent them the car so that they can go back to the house. The Doctor's eyes flicker from the road, through the rain-spattered windshield and the squeaking windshield wipers, to where Rose sits, staring out her window, her elbow on the door and her knuckles against her lips.

"I was going to blow his brains all across the room," she lowers her eyes a little bit, and then looks over to her husband. "Does that make me a horrible person?" she asks quietly, her face blank, deep in thought.

"No," the Doctor answers simply, eyes pointed out the windscreen again. "It makes you a good mother."

Rose doesn't answer him, or even change her facial expression. The Doctor's not even sure she heard him, but he also doesn't know if it's important. Neither of them feels like a good parent right now. The chances are that their exploits with Torchwood, and Cybus, and time and space, or a mixture of the above, have gotten their little boy taken from them. Confiscated. This feels like some kind of punishment, losing Jack - and he tries not to think they've lost him, but it's hard. He feels his hope waning, and his single heart breaking.

Finally, after an hour of silence in traffic, the Doctor pulls the car into the gates of the Tyler mansion, and the tires crunch the pebbles of the driveway on its way toward the house in the middle of the large green grounds. He stops the car right in front of the house, a short sprint through the rain from the covered porch.

The engine dies with a turn of the key, they get out, and trudge to the porch with little care for the rain.

Water is falling from the sky, the Doctor thinks. Of what consequence is that, when their whole world is falling down around them?

The Doctor and Rose let themselves into the mansion, and find that the place is completely silent, bar for the subdued sounds of Jackie and Tony solemnly eating in the kitchen. It's only eight o'clock, and the sky is slowly darkening through blue to black. The Doctor looks to Rose, as she shrugs off her wet coat and drapes it over the banister of the great staircase. She half-closes her eyes, and looks like she's about to fall asleep on her feet. No, in fact, she looks like she's about to die on her feet. The Doctor guesses that he must look the same.

They drag their feet on the way up the stairs, and are mostly undressed already by the time they get to their bedroom in the TARDIS.

The Doctor heads into the bathroom to brush his teeth and change into his pajamas, and Rose drops onto the bed, flat on her stomach, hands falling over the edge. She stares out of the simulated window of the bedroom, which the Doctor has left unprogrammed to leave the TARDIS some room to express herself, and sees a stormy, rainy night just like the one outside. The ship usually shows a clear night, when all is well.

But all is not well. Even their beloved time ship misses the bundle of laughter and energy and _life _that Jack is, sensing his absence and mourning it.

Rose remembers the feel of his pudgy little hands wrapped around her forefingers, as he learnt to walk. She remembers the sore back she had from hunching to help him walk - because he wanted to walk - when he couldn't do it on his own. She remembers him choking her whenever she gave him a piggyback. She remembers him skinning his knee for the first time, and tears streaming down his face as he called out for her - _her. _She is the person he calls out for when he's hurting, when he's scared.

_Mummy!_

Rose's throat clogs and she pushes herself up from the bed, raking back her wet hair and drawing a shaky breath. She glances sideways, and sees the homely wooden doors set into the wall, with a dozen square-shaped windows in each, both with sheer, lilac curtains hanging over the windows. Her lower lip quivers and she screws up her face, marching at the doors and grabbing both handles. She shoves them down and tugs them open.

She nearly steps on one of his toys, but it suddenly feels like she hit a force field. Rose stands there, hands now hanging at her sides, eyes sweeping over Jack's bedroom. One day, he won't want his room so close to theirs, but he's still so little. Oh, god, she can't breathe again. Her stomach is clenching, her head is spinning, and it hurts. Everything hurts. Her eyes are burning, and her cheeks are wet, this time with warm tears instead of cold rain. She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out for a moment.

And then, the sound floods from her lungs - a low, keening, grieving moan, probably loud enough to wake the dead, but she doesn't care. It's like more of her is being ripped away, right out through her throat, and it hurts. And she hunches over, arms winding around her middle, where she once carried her missing baby boy, and her fingernails scratching at the wet fabric of her top. She gives a grating kind of scream into the darkened room, her face twisting in agony.

The Doctor is there before she can even blink, having thundered through their bedroom at the sound of her cry. Maybe he thought she had hurt herself, or that there was an intruder … or maybe he just knew that she'd need him. He appears in front of her, swallowing and watching her helplessly.

He reaches out to catch her when her knees give out, but she sinks down to the floor anyway, taking him with her. They kneel together, his hands on her arms, her face wet and tear-streaked and clearly showing her anguish. Rose's hands find the fabric of his now-unbuttoned suit shirt - he'd been changing when he heard her.

She tries to speak, but all that comes out is another wail.

The Doctor gathers her up in his arms and holds her close, but can't say anything to soothe her. He wishes he could tell her it will all be okay, to shush her and calm her with promises of things returning to normal. But he can't promise those things, isn't sure whether he even believes them. So all he says is, "I've got you," in a quiet, broken whisper. "I've got you."

Rose buries her face in his chest and all but shrieks into him. She's trying to talk, but the ability escapes her. She inhales deep, gasping breaths, and then sobs them back out, and he squeezes her tight to him, holding on and feeling his own grief creeping up his throat. Finally, she manages out, between shuddering breaths, "He's just a baby," and between her face crumpling and her hands shaking, she continues, "still so little and … look what we've done to him."

The Doctor doesn't deny it, and finally, tears fall down his own cheeks, but he keeps his face clear. She needs strength, and he owes it to her. All this is most definitely their fault. If they didn't cause someone to want to take him in the first place, then they certainly didn't put safety precautions in place for him. The Doctor tightens his grip on her and rocks her slowly back and forth. "I've got you," he murmurs against her hair.

Rose's hands tighten on his shirt fabric, and she pulls back to look into his eyes. "Where is he? Did he get away from Edwards, is he out there in the rain, tonight, trying to find his way home?" her mind is running aloud, her panic evident on her features, still red and swollen from her tears. "Did Edwards stash him somewhere? To starve while we look for him?" she croaks, her throat closing.

The Doctor suddenly grips her shoulders, eyes wide and his face ashen. "Don't. Don't say those things, Rose," he tells her, shaking his head weakly at her. "Please," he adds on, and fresh tears line his cheeks. He can't think like that - he has to hope, has to believe that Jack is safe, wherever he is.

Rose's eyes narrow at him as her mouth twists. "Where _is he_?" she whimpers, tugging on the Doctor's shirt, like as if she thinks he has answers. But nobody has answers - not for them. "Is he okay? Is he hurt?" she adds on, her words ragged and uneven.

The Doctor draws two heaving, panicky breaths, deep brown eyes boring into Rose's own, and then swallows. He bites his lower lip for a moment, and then grips her shoulders harder for a moment. "Come here," he finally breathes, his panic falling away into melancholy.

Rose's brow furrows in confusion, but she relaxes, just a little bit, when he gently ghosts his fingertips against her temples and brings her closer, rests his forehead against hers. Her breathing is still hard and fast, and her chest is still clenching, and somehow, she expected this sensation of cool calmness to wash over her with the company of the Doctor's mind meeting her own. Instead, she feels her own anguish doubled, her own thoughts parroting back at her - the same worries, the same fears, the same guilt.

And then there's a light - a life, a warmth - in the back of the Doctor's head, that he guides her toward.

Rose feels it all over for a brief moment, and then it fades a little, and she can only feel it in the back of her head - a constant presence. It's Jack. Her Jack, her little guy - her trooper. And he's right there. Rose hears herself gasping out, but it sounds like it's a million miles away. She wants to go closer, but the Doctor doesn't let her. He keeps her on this edge, just close enough to feel their baby's warmth, just far enough that she can't feel his fear.

More warm tears spill down her cheeks, but her breathing slows, and her face goes slack. The Doctor holds onto her, and when she drops down a little more, no longer standing on her knees but sitting on her calves, he sinks down too, and keeps her in his mind, close to Jack. That's where she needs to be. Rose hears him whispering to her comfortingly - _there you go, shh, I've got you, that's it, don't worry - _and draws one more breath, this one slow and steady, her brow still furrowed against her husband's, before she drifts off into the blissful, silent darkness.


	3. Three

Rose bathes in the nothingness of sleep, until there is a shrill cry in the middle of the night that jolts her awake. It's not the sound of a crying baby, not the sound of the TARDIS alarms, not even the sound of the burglar alarm of the mansion outside. Rose's whole body jerks to life only a moment after the Doctor does. She is lying curled up in his arms, facing him in their bed. He must have moved her, she thinks.

But the noise continues, and the Doctor sits up quickly, disentangling himself from her and reaching over to the bedside table. It's Rose's mobile phone, going off - with the bold words 'TORCHWOOD CALLING' printed atop the now glowing screen, bright as a sun in the darkened bedroom. He squints slightly at the light, and looks over to Rose, who is rubbing frantically at her eyes.

He answers the call and brings it to his ear. "Hello?" he asks blearily.

_"Doctor?" _Pete's voice asks, and it's deathly serious - shaking, in fact. _"I'm … I'm sorry to wake you. I thought you'd want me to."_

The Doctor swallows thickly. He doesn't like the sound of that. He reaches into the back of his mind for the reassuring presence of Jack's life force, but it's gone out - cold, dark, gone. But it's even colder than usual, he thinks. Involuntarily, he catches Rose's hand in his, under the warmth of their sheets, glancing over and meeting her eyes. "Did you find something?" the Doctor asks quietly. His time sense kicks in - it's quarter past three in the morning.

Pete is silent for a beat. And then he croaks out, _"We found a body."_

The Doctor finds himself unable to breathe, his hand going slack in Rose's. He grabs the sheets and peels them back without thinking, kicking his legs out, eyes widening. Jack, he thinks, still reaching out for his son in his mind. He only finds more darkness, more coldness, and a sinking feeling in his stomach - like he's had a heavy stone for dinner.

"Doctor," Rose whispers to him, and he turns. She sees his face. "What is it?" she asks quietly, brows tilting in worry.

He blinks a few times. "It's Pete," he says simply, a dumbfounded expression on his face. And then, disbelievingly, he blurts, "They found a body."

Rose doesn't hesitate before throwing herself out of bed and grabbing for the floor, for the jeans she was wearing earlier, that he'd stripped off her legs before laying her in the bed. They're still wet, but she tugs them on anyway. Meanwhile, the Doctor stares at nothing in particular - out to the image of the rain outside the simulator window in their bedroom. Little Jack, he thinks; little Jack, lying in the cold, in the rain … dead.

Rose looks to him, now standing on his side of the bed, stuffing sockless feet into her combat boots, and the Doctor finds that he is numb. There is nothing left in him - no joy, no warmth, no hope. Rose blinks at him, just once, and then pulls back her arm - and slaps him across the face. He jolts, and the phone nearly falls from his hand. He swallows and stares at her, not even moving to soothe the pain on his face.

"Get up," Rose says, setting her jaw. "Get up _right now _and get dressed," she reaches out, briefly caresses the cheek she's just slapped, and then steals the phone from him. She brings it to her ear. "We're on our way," she states clearly into the phone.

* * *

The rain is coming down even harder now - thunder is rolling, and lightning flashes across the sky every few minutes or so. The location of the body is west of the heart of London, and as they pull up, they see that the whole area is cordoned off with yellow police tape, and that huge floodlights have been placed around the site, standing tall over the muddy, sloping, grassy gulch a few yards off of the motorway. The rain has turned the shallow dip into a stream of murky water.

And in it, face down, lies the body of a little boy, floodlights illuminating him even as the rain beats on his corpse.

The Doctor and Rose arrive on the scene only minutes after Torchwood does, and the police let them past the yellow tape without any question - their faces, too, have been plastered all over the news. Rose vaults the metal barrier along the side of the now-blocked-off motorway, and stumbles in the mud when she sees the prone form of the little boy in the mud, his legs still in the flowing water.

She cries out weakly, and then slides and staggers down the muddy slope toward her baby. There are agents and police officers taking photographs of the body where it lies, and others marching around looking for clues - only finding the tiny footsteps and the slide marks where they can see how the little boy wandered and then tottered into the shallow water. Pete is the one nearest to the body, and he turns at the sound of Rose's voice - tiny, quiet pleas to gods that he'll never know of, praying that it isn't true.

She crashes into his arms, trying to get past him to get to Jack. "Let me go," she urges him uselessly, trying to fight him and hug him all at once. "My baby," she garbles out, tears dripping off her chin and her teeth bared like an animal. "Oh god please no," she moans.

The Doctor skids down the mud with little grace, eyes wide like a goat before a lion, as he stares at the body of his son - just those few yards away, and yet, so far. He gulps and trudges through the mud in the same footsteps as Rose, not caring about the brown patches on his knees or the mud on his sneakers. Pete can't hold onto them both - and someone who knows this finally comes over. It's the wide-mouthed agent from Torchwood Three, from yesterday, who looked peeved to even be here. And he grabs the Doctor by both arms and holds him away from the body so the other investigators can work.

"Get off me!" the Doctor suddenly roars, hands coming up to beat the man away, "That's my son! Get off, please, let me go! Please!" he gasps out, his voice somewhere between outrage and agony. His hands ball up into fists and he hits the agent in the stomach, who holds on, even as he winces and grunts.

"Hold up, stop it mate, you have to stop," the man tells him firmly, grabbing the Doctor's forearms tightly. The half-Time Lord tries to pull away, but finds himself unable to. He gasps out another 'please', but the agent fixes him with a dead-set, solemn, apologetic expression. "Let us do our work. There's nothing you can do," his brows tilt at the Doctor, who begins to go still.

"No, no, nonono - please, please, let me-," the Doctor tries uselessly, but his face contorts, and he can't speak anymore.

He looks past the agent, to see Pete holding onto a weeping Rose Tyler, who tries to bat at him and hit him, even as she moans her grief to the pouring English sky. And near to the body, there's another Torchwood agent, an Asian woman, picking at the body's clothes surgically, like little Jack is just … just a _thing. _The Doctor grunts in his clogged throat, but he can't move - and it's not just because of the man holding him.

The woman near the body moves into his line of sight, blocking him - and Rose, he suspects - from seeing what she's doing. But he can tell. She's turning the body over, to get a look at his face. Checking for wounds, trying to determine cause of death. He sees the woman sigh heavily, take off her coat and drape it over the body's face.

She stands and marches over to Pete and Rose, and says something quietly. Rose goes very still, and the Doctor's struggles are renewed. He has to know. He needs to know what happened to his son, to his child.

Pete slowly lets go of Rose, who stumbles backwards, away from the body. They stare at one another, and then they turn and come at the Doctor. Rose walks at first, and then she runs. The agent holding the Doctor meets Pete's gaze, and then slowly releases the missing child's father. Rose stops before the Doctor. She speaks quickly, not wanting to suspend him in worry, but he still feels the moments as hours before he is consoled.

"It's not him," she tells him, and she chokes, still crying. "It's not Jack."

The Doctor knows he should be upset - upset that instead, someone else's child is dead - but he isn't. It feels horrible, to be glad that someone else is suffering instead of him, but he breathes a sigh of relief. He feels his whole body sagging, and Rose is suddenly there to hold him up, her arms round his middle and her cheek against his chest.

"It's not him," Rose repeats into his soaking wet black overcoat, the bottom of which is now splashed with mud. "It's not him."

The Doctor clings to her, buries his face in her wet hair, and hopes he feels Jack's presence again soon. Just because they haven't found the body doesn't mean there isn't one to find.

* * *

Rose falls asleep in the car on the way back to Torchwood Tower. It's not a long drive, but when the Doctor pulls the car into the basement parking lot, he looks over and finds that he doesn't want to wake her. She seems exhausted. He doesn't need quite so much sleep as her, and he's been sleeping like the dead since Jack's disappearance; it's run them ragged. But the sun is beginning to rise, and there's more work to be done. Rose would want him to wake her so she could get to work.

He rouses her with a gentle shake, appraises her with a brief kiss on the corner of her mouth, and then circles the car to let her out.

They stumble into the elevator and Rose nearly falls asleep against him again, when she wraps her arms around his waist and buries her face in his wet lapels. He's worried about her. She finally releases him and composes herself a few beats before the elevator reaches the tactical floor, and they both step out. They cross the hall and let themselves into the conference room, where everyone is still busily working every angle.

There is a brief pause - and everyone looks up at them for a moment. They must look a right mess - wet hair, faces ruddy from tears, clothes disheveled, the same ones as worn yesterday, mud splashes on their trousers. Everyone knows the score. It's the third day; hope is waning, optimism is in short supply.

The Doctor pulls a face and chooses not to pay attention to the pitying looks the other agents give them. He marches toward the coffee maker in the corner and jabs his fingers into the buttons until it pours out two cups of coffee in paper cups. Rose appears behind him just in time for him to hand over her cup, and gives a weak, thankful smile.

"Is he alive?" Rose asks quietly, before taking a sip of the hot coffee, nearly choking as it burns down her throat.

The Doctor brings his cup to his own lips and inhales the steam coming off it. He bites his tongue for a moment, then swallows. "I don't know," he answers solemnly, eyes flicking to Rose's. "I haven't felt him since before we fell asleep. I thought …" he pauses, his throat tight. "I thought it was him. The body."

And he's given himself a headache, trying to reach out for Jack.

Rose's brows tilt and she lays her cheek against his upper arm, and takes a long sip of her coffee, even as it scorches her mouth. Her ears pick up the sound of the news in the corner of the room over the sound of people working, and they both look over to the television.

It's running a picture of a different little boy, now. It's nearly four in the morning, and the media have happened upon the new information almost instantly. It's the boy from the crime scene out by the motorway, the one everyone thought was Jack. The photograph shows the little boy at Christmas, with gift-wrapping over his lap and a toy train in his hands, grinning at whoever is taking his picture. His name is Connor Mackenzie, he was three years old, and he'd wandered off in the rainstorm late last night.

A respectful amount of media coverage is lent to running Connor Mackenzie's story, and it runs a clip of his mother crying into the arms of a policeman, with a statement on one side of the screen, saying how she feared, last night, that there was someone going around taking children - after the disappearance of Jack Tyler.

The Doctor takes a gulp of his own coffee - it's bitter and strong, and he's not really a coffee drinker in the first place, but he can see that he'll need some extra energy rations today. Rose's hand finds his, and squeezes. He squeezes back. Rose lets go of him and gives him a sad smile.

"I'm going to see if there's anything I can do to help," she says mildly, before reaching up, catching the back of his neck and giving him a peck on the cheek. Then she turns and moves over to the UNIT team working in the corner, laying her hands on the backs of their chairs and querying if there's anything she can do. The Doctor doesn't miss the way they hesitate before inviting her to join.

He draws a heavy breath and pulls out a rolling chair from the conference table, warming his hands on his cup. He sits and patiently waits to feel Jack's presence in his mind again, and every second that rolls by is agony.

* * *

They find nothing on the third day.

Rose and the Doctor have been awake for twenty-two hours straight by the time they get back to the mansion, and so they sink down into the couch in the room where the TARDIS resides, curl up in one another, and wait for exhaustion to sweep them away into dreams of their perfect life together - dreams of them and their little boy, memories of days gone by.

Tears fill Rose's eyes, but she hasn't the energy to sob. Quietly, she whispers, "S'funny. I always thought one day, we'd have another baby. Someone for Jack to play with, to teach. Maybe a little girl," she murmurs into the upholstery, the Doctor holding onto her from behind. She doesn't seem to know why the thought is occurring to her now, but then she simply shuts her eyes and lets the tears drip away.

"At least he's alive," the Doctor answers grimly. "There's … there's hope yet."

Rose opens her eyes again and stares at the back of the couch. "What if we never find him?" she asks tersely.

"Rose, please," the Doctor stops her, holding her close, "Don't think like that."

"I have to," Rose replies sharply, her voice still broken, "Because it's real. It's what I've been worrying about since he went … since he went missing. I have to think about those things, have to worry about what's happening to him. And what if we never find him? I've seen the crime channel. Children get kidnapped by people who want kids but don't have any - and they grow up, never knowing," Rose thinks aloud.

"That's not going to happen," the Doctor tells her firmly, "We're going to find him."

"How?" Rose exhales, "We caught Roger Edwards, and he won't talk - and we have no idea where he is. Is he on his own? Has someone else got him? Is he stashed away in a cupboard in a safe-house somewhere? We don't know _anything._"

The Doctor puts his mouth to the damp hair at the back of Rose's head, and says nothing. He doesn't have the answers. They eventually drift into the darkness.

On the fourth day, Torchwood gets a message from the president of the United Kingdom. The search efforts have drained funds that are not for search and rescue. Torchwood is paid to find alien technology and use it to advance the country; not to find lost little boys. Pete tries to argue with the president, to little avail.

This is the last day of the search.

"Delivery for Agent Rose Tyler," someone announces, leaning into the conference room and tapping the door with a knuckle.

There's a pause, and everyone looks up.

Rose is standing at the other end of the room with Gwen and Stella, running over transcripts of Roger Edwards' interrogations since his arrest, but she quickly turns her head to the voice, and sees a gawky, teenaged delivery boy standing there with one hand on the doorframe and the other holding a box - a small cardboard box. He doesn't seem to see the weight of his role in her life, and stands there, chewing gum and waiting.

The Doctor stands up abruptly from where he sits with Pete, going over the maps and trying to find better places to put the roadblocks and search parties. His face is like thunder when he speaks to the delivery boy.

"Who sent that?" he asks sharply.

The boy arches a brow. "I don't know," he answers dully. "Look, someone's got to sign for this or I have to take it back."

Rose draws a sharp breath and crosses the room in three long strides. "I'll sign for it - I'm Rose Tyler, that's me," she says as she walks, approaching the boy and deftly taking the box off his hands. She can't tell what's inside - it's packed with bubble-wrap or something. The boy extends a clipboard and Rose signs for it. He leaves without another word, as she turns and puts the box on the table.

"Open it," the Doctor says, appearing at her side.

Rose meets his eyes with a swallow. "I don't know what's inside. It could be anything."

The Doctor pulls a face. "Do you want me to open it?" he asks, and when Rose nods mildly, he turns the box to him and draws a shaky breath of his own. He slips his fingers between the lines of the box, and then the top pops up a little. The room holds its breath. Slowly, he lifts the lid, and unfolds the bubble-wrap.

And inside, are Jack Wilfred Tyler's school shoes.

Rose stares into the box, wavering on her feet as the Doctor slowly, hesitantly reaches in and takes out the shoes. At the bottom of the box, under the shoes, is a note, in handwriting neither of them recognizes. The Doctor puts Jack's shoes on the table, carefully, like he's preserving them, and takes out the note.

_'Have a nice day,' _the note reads.

* * *

Forensics studies the shoes, the box, the note - especially the note - and takes the fingerprints of the delivery boy who brought the box to the tower. They find nothing on the box, nothing on the shoes - and determine that the handwriting on the note is, in fact, a Microsoft Word font replicated meticulously by hand. The shoes are eventually returned to Rose and the Doctor, in a clear evidence bag marked 'Articles of clothing of Jack Wilfred Tyler, case number 0052514' along with the date the case was opened, and the date the evidence was found.

They sit together in the lobby on the floor of the conference room, away from where everyone else is working, and the Doctor holds the evidence bag in his open palms, one of Jack's tiny shoes in each hand, and stare at the shoes as if Jack will somehow materialize inside them. Eventually, the Doctor drops the bag on the couch between him and Rose, hunches over and scrubs his hands over his face, and into his hair.

There's someone else, then. Not just Roger Edwards, because he's been caught. And whoever has Jack wants to hurt them. All of this really is their fault - someone's taken their little boy just to hurt them. And the shoes have been sent today - almost like someone knows that the president has called an end to the search, and is taunting them.

"He's still alive," the Doctor says quietly, even as he stares through his fingers to the floor between his feet.

Rose lays a hand on his back and solemnly replies, "That doesn't mean we'll get him back." And it's not chiding, not placating, but completely thoughtful. That's all she's thinking, all she's been able to think about for the last three days - the fact that they might not get their boy back. The Doctor's eyes are dark and reprimanding when they meet hers, but she meets them head-on, with a cold stare of her own.

"At seven o' clock, all funding to the search team will be cut," the Doctor reminds her - as if they need reminding. "It'll just be the police. And they won't find him - not if it's someone we've beaten in the past who's taken him."

Rose nods, lowering her eyes. She presses her mouth into a thin line, her hand landing gently atop the plastic bag around Jack's school shoes, studying them. "Maybe we should make an appeal. Use the media, give a statement," she whispers, not sure herself whether or not she means for him to hear her.

The Doctor frowns immediately and glances at her as if to scold her for the very idea. "And say what? Whoever has Jack isn't after a ransom, or fame, or glory. They want revenge. They want to hurt us," he pauses, as Rose looks up from the shoes under her hand, and looks solemn, yet somehow hopeful. Then he adds on, carefully, "What kind of appeal are you talking about?"

Rose looks away. "They want to hurt us," she reminds him dully. "What if … what if they took me instead? If we did a trade - my life for Jack's - do you think … do you think they'd let him go?" she asks in a small voice. The Doctor's eyes widen at her, but he can't say the idea is a bad one. He can't even say he doesn't consider it - because he does, right off the bat.

They both know the score. Jack comes first - always.

"I wouldn't let you do that," the Doctor replies dryly. "Jack needs you. You're his mother."

Rose catches onto his argument before he can even make it. "He needs you more," she snaps at him. "The telepathy you two have, he needs it. You told me yourself, when he was born, that he would need you to teach him how to use it, how to cope with it," she gets up and walks away from the Doctor, before turning and pacing slowly, back and forth at the other side of the lobby. She sees the look on his face - that look that says he regrets telling her that in the first place, even if it is the truth.

The Doctor stares at her for a beat longer, then spits out, "They wouldn't let you do that on the news, anyway. You'd have to use Torchwood leaks to get the word out, and we don't even know who we're dealing with." And then he scrapes his fingernails at his scalp, shutting his eyes and sighing. He wishes that that _had _gotten a ransom call. Money, he can get. Money is something tangible and physical and easy to get, if ignoring things like morality and the law - which the Doctor would gladly forsake if it would save his son.

Rose slips her fingers into her own hair at either side of her head. She draws a few shallow, panting breaths, finally realizing that this is the last chance to do something. Hyperventilation beginning to assert itself, Rose's eyes flick from one point in the room to another. "So … so what are we gonna do?" she asks uselessly, eyes flitting to the Doctor, who watches her only with a patient, defeated look on his face. "What about the TARDIS? Can it find him? Can you trace the DNA, or follow the telepathic link?" she asks frantically.

The Doctor takes a slow blink. "Don't you think that's the first thing I would have tried?" he retorts coldly and simply, like she's an idiot.

"There's got … got to be something we can do … Something, anything," Rose gasps out, "There's got to be something, there's-," her voice cracks, but that's not why she stops.

"There's nothing," the Doctor interrupts bluntly, eyes falling on the floor. "There's nothing. We're done. It's finished."


	4. Four

Funding for the search is rescinded. All Torchwood personnel go back to work at their own desks, wherever they may be, and go back to working on their own projects. The help from elsewhere stays for a few hours longer - UNIT, the CIA, RETIU and GIG - but then their higher-ups rein their agents in too, knowing a fruitless search when they see one. Even the media starts to drop the story, with one, and then two channels, diverting to a different event - an oil spill just off the island of Florida.

The fourth day ends.

Rose and the Doctor go home in the same car as Pete, and they part from him as soon as they're through the door. It's not really Pete's fault that the funding got cut, but he's the closest person they can blame. He's the one that's supposed to advocate for them to the government. The Doctor and Rose step into the eerily silent TARDIS - now humming sadly and consolingly to them as they enter. The Doctor's eyes remain downcast and sullen, and Rose is slightly more excited.

Denial, the Doctor thinks - the first stage of grief. He's past denial already - already somehow in depression. Rose's lips move, and though he doesn't hear her mouthed words, he knows what she's repeating to herself on instinct. _'There'sgottobesomethinggottobesomethingsomethingh avetodosomething'._

He physically winces when he feels Jack's presence dropping off the grid in the back of his mind.

They sleep in the same bed, but stay as far from one another as possible. The ship is silent, bar for the hum of its engines. Rose peers over the foot of the bed and sees the open doors at the end of the room, into Jack's bedroom. She sees his toys, his things, his bed, and as her eyes fill with tears, glances over to the Doctor, who stares at the ceiling with heavy-hooded eyes, deep in thought. She rolls to her side, her back to her husband, and weeps as silently as possible. He doesn't move to comfort her - maybe because he knows she doesn't want him to, or maybe because he's too lost in his own grief.

Neither of them sleeps that night.

* * *

Jack is sick.

He's hungry most of the time, because the people moving him don't remember, often, to feed him. That's okay, though. When they do give him food, it's McDonalds food, and that's nice. He likes McDonalds. Mum and Dad wouldn't let him have it everyday, he's sure of that, but they would feed him more often, and that would be nice, too. He doesn't like it when his tummy rumbles.

He's also got a headache, but he thinks that's his own fault. He keeps reaching out, in his head, for Dad, whenever he can't feel him, and it's hard. He must not be doing it right. When he looks for Dad's mind, sometimes, he can't find it. And sometimes, when he does find it, it's like when you stare at the sun and there's a spot on your vision, blocking you from seeing exactly what you're trying to look at. And his head hurts.

The people moving him let him out every so often to take him to the bathroom at a petrol station, and once, Jack tried to shout out that the man holding his arm wasn't his dad, but that just got him a smack in the face as soon as the man tugged him out of the station.

He's also really very tired, a lot. It's probably because he hasn't been eating much, and he knows that there isn't much body fuel in fast food - Mum said that, once, to grandma. And he doesn't know whether or not he's sleeping at the right times, because where he is, it's always, always dark.

Plus his arms and legs keep cramping, and that hurts a lot. He knows what Dad would say. _'Should have a banana! Potassium, little man, is what stops that from happening! And bananas are __**packed **__with potassium!'_

And then, he's car sick - on top of everything else.

He feels like he's in a car, even though everything around him is a bare, dark, black room with a few pillows and a bottle of water inside. Sometimes it's nice and warm inside - but then he gets sweaty - and other times, it's really cold, and that's horrible. It never seems to be the right temperature. Through the metal walls and ceiling of his room, Jack can always hear the rain.

He doesn't think it's stopped raining since he last saw Mum.

Poor mum. He wonders how she's doing. If Dad is worried, then Mum is probably going mad with panic. Actually, Dad doesn't feel worried anymore. He just feels sad. And that makes Jack sad. Is Mum sad? Does she cry over not seeing him anymore? Maybe mum and dad got sick of him and decided to send him away, he thinks sometimes, but then he feels how upset Dad is, and he knows that that isn't what happened.

Mum and Dad would never send him away. They love him, always and forever - they say it all the time.

_"Goodnight, Jack - I love you."_

_"Hand 'im here, Rose, you hold him all the time. There we go. Hi, pudgy, give us a smile. Aww, look, he smiled at me! I love you too, Jack!"_

_"Shh, sweetheart, it's alright. I love you, alright? Drawing on the wall isn't gonna make me stop loving you."_

_"I __**love **__you, Jack! You're brilliant! You are, you're absolutely __**fantastic- **__ooh, haven't said that in a while- Rose! Jack found the sonic screwdriver! It was down the back of the jump seat!"_

_"I'll be back in a few days, alright, boys? I love you two. See you when I get back. Jack, keep your dad out of trouble, yeah?"_

_"It's okay, Jack. Mum'll be back before you even know it. I've got you. I love you."_

Jack isn't bored, though. He's too uncomfortable and too upset to feel bored. He's hungry again. It's been exactly five hours, forty-six minutes and eighteen seconds since he last ate; surely there's some food coming soon. He can taste it already. Thinking about food leads him to thinking about fish and chips - Mum's favorite food ever. He remembers the last time they had fish and chips as a family - him, mum, dad, grandma, granddad and Tony, all sitting in the kitchen at the mansion. He wishes he was at home right now, eating fish and chips with mum and dad, in the TARDIS.

He misses the TARDIS, too. He misses falling asleep to the sounds the ship always makes - the gentle humming, like the breath of a giant. The TARDIS is a telepath, too, like him and Dad. But he's not linked to the TARDIS the way Dad is - he can't feel it, now. Dad said he would teach him that when he got older.

Jack lurches to one side where he sits in the dark metal room, and puts his hands out to catch himself when he falls down. The room suddenly stops moving. Maybe he was right, and someone's coming to give him some food. He doesn't need the bathroom - he's just very hungry. His stomach growls insistently. He hears the doors of the cab opening, and the people moving him climbing out onto the tarmac.

Suddenly, Jack feels a warmth in the back of his head, the same kind of warmth as Dad's, except stronger. Twice as strong, in fact. It's close. It's a presence, another telepath like him - he knows it. But it can't be Dad. Are there other telepaths like him? Other people who can feel that feeling in the back of their head? Mentally, Jack reaches out for the source of the warmth, looking for emotion, but he doesn't find anything there. It's just a presence.

And then there's an explosion - like a gun firing - and Jack jumps in his skin, eyes wide and his teeth on edge. Straight after the shot, Jack hears something heavy falling down, and someone shouting. Jack clambers to his feet and goes to the front of the room, away from the doors at the back. He doesn't like this. He's worried. He's scared. He's so scared. There's another shot, and something else hits the ground with only a groan.

A voice he doesn't recognize speaks, and Jack's face scrunches in unease. That's not dad. Then there's a buzzing noise, sort of like the sonic screwdriver, but more high-pitched, like how Jack imagines a laser would sound. The bolts on the doors of his room break away, and one of the doors is slowly pulled open. A man looks in.

It's bright outside, though still raining, and Jack's eyes hurt as soon as the door opens, but he squints through it at the man. His expression is blank, but that warmth at the back of Jack's head changes slightly; through it, Jack can feel something, like a song, with words in a language he doesn't understand. He's heard songs like this one before - his dad used to sing them to him when he was younger - but this feels different. The man suddenly gives Jack a big smile.

The man has short blonde hair, and is clean-shaven, with dark brown eyes and salt-and-pepper stubble. His smile seems genuine, but Jack still doesn't know if he should trust the new stranger. He has a bad feeling about him. "It's all right now - you're safe," the man suddenly says, smile not wavering.

Jack frowns at him, uncomprehending. The warmth in his head spreads, though, and the man, the other telepath, starts giving off waves of soothing emotion. Maybe he should go with this man. Anything's better than sitting in the dark all the time. Maybe the man will take him home.

The man pulls open both doors and Jack can see that the man is in a crisp suit. In one hand, there's a gold tube thing that Jack very clearly wants to think of as a sonic screwdriver. The man gestures with his hands for Jack to come over. "Come on, I'm not going to hurt you," the man suggests, still smiling.

Jack's brows tilt worriedly. He opens his mouth to speak, then stops and screws up his face. Slowly, reluctantly, Jack takes a few steps toward the doors, still frowning at the man. The man stays still, not moving to grab him like the other people did, and so Jack comes closer. The man extends his hand up into the truck, and Jack takes it as he approaches the edge of the truck.

"That's it," the man says calmly and soothingly, as he plucks little Jack out of the truck, under the arms with both hands. "Come to uncle Harry," he chuckles lightly under his breath, placing Jack on his hip. The rain pelts them both, but the man doesn't seem to notice it at all, turning away from the truck and walking away from it, carrying the squinting, malnourished quarter-Time Lord child out of the side-street that the truck is parked in.

* * *

On the seventh day, the president offers them a lavish, state funeral for their baby boy. Jack can't yet be declared legally dead, but Pete explains that it would be the president's way of telling the country to stop thinking about it. He'd rather Jack Tyler be remembered as a national tragedy than an unsolved mystery. The Doctor refuses immediately. Jack isn't dead. He won't have anyone say that his son is dead, because he knows it isn't true. He can feel Jack's life force.

They've been all but banned from Torchwood Tower since the investigation stopped - placed on forced leave. Rose is desperate to throw herself into work, but all she can do is sit around the house trying not to think about Jack. She's read four books since the end of the search, lost countless hours of sleep staring at the ceiling and run a total of twenty-three miles in laps around the grounds. She needs to busy herself with anything and everything.

The Doctor is doing the opposite. He walks aimlessly around the mansion and the grounds and the TARDIS throughout the day, cataloguing his memories of Jack, reliving them one-by-one. He spent three hours alone sitting and staring at the scribbles under the wallpaper in Jack's room - after he tore up the paper to find them - and breathing in the lingering, slowly fading scent of grass-stains and no-tears shampoo that still exists in the toddler's bedroom. He doesn't know how many times he's caught himself staring at the little footstool in the control room, the one he built himself so that Jack could climb up onto the jump-seat.

On the eighth day, the president calls again, and tells them, quite firmly, that he has an uproar on his hands - people who are not happy with Torchwood giving up the search for little Jack Tyler. There has to be a funeral, or a ceremony, or _something. _The country needs closure.

When Pete tries to talk to Rose about it, he gets an evasive reply like 'talk to the Doctor' or 'I'm in the middle of something', before she jogs away to busy herself some more. When he tries to talk to the Doctor, he either gets a dry, bitter and simple 'No', or he gets shouted at. Things are going downhill all over Britain - the stock market has been affected, and the economy has slowed down, just a fraction. Jack's disappearance has been bad for morale all over this damp little island. So Pete asks Jackie to try to talk to them.

Jackie initially refuses, but when Pete tells her how broken the two people in question are, she gives in.

She sits them both down at the table in the kitchen - and they barely even look at one another, because when they do, they see all the little features that Jack has inherited from them. Rose sees where Jack got the shape of his mouth, and that funny-shaped ear that father and son share on the left side. The Doctor sees Jack's golden brown eyes, and the button nose that Rose passed on to their son.

"We won't have a funeral," Jackie says plainly, hands cradling a cup of tea identical to those in front of her daughter and son-in-law. They look momentarily relieved, but then she goes on, "But for the sake of the country, we 'ave to do something. Give them a service, some kind of memorial."

"No," the Doctor says simply, taking a small sip of his own tea.

Rose says nothing.

On the tenth day, Pete accepts the president's offer without consulting with Jack's parents. Not a funeral - just a memorial at the Buckingham Estate.

The Doctor loses all remaining semblance of sanity and unleashes the very essence of the Oncoming Storm on Pete Tyler. His language is colorful and multilingual, from where he stands at one end of the living room in the Tyler mansion, shouting bloody murder at his father-in-law for accepting the president's stupid offer. Rose ambles into the room behind him, seeming a little bit unsteady on her feet, and Jackie deduces that her daughter is at least slightly drunk.

"Well what was I supposed to do?" Pete yells back at the Doctor. "You and Rose have been completely useless! When I talk to you, it's a non-negotiable 'no', and when I talk to Rose, she's too busy running circles around the house to give me a straight answer!"

The Doctor launches himself at Pete at this point, grabs him by the lapels and slams him up against the wall. Even Rose, whose eyelids are heavy and whose footsteps are uncertain, jumps in surprise. Jackie is upon the two men at once, hands on the Doctor's shoulder, trying to yank him off of Pete.

"What if it was Tony?" the Doctor growls out viciously, eyes wide and threatening, "What if it was Tony that was missing, and your good friend the president made you give up on him? Would you let him tell the country your boy was dead, Pete? Is that what you'd do? Just to take all this bloody 'uproar' off his hands?"

"Doctor, get off him!" Jackie shouts, batting him hard on the back. He pays no notice.

"He's not dead, Pete," the Doctor tells him, voice ragged, "I can feel him in my head, and he's not dead. Please, Pete, please," the Doctor babbles out, unable to stop himself, as saltwater leaps to his eyes, "We need Torchwood to find him. We'll never find him without … Pete, I can't lose him."

And then the Doctor is crying into Pete's jacket, and both of his parents-in-law are holding onto him and speaking words of apology. Rose watches the scene with blank fascination for a moment, before turning and silently leaving the room. She moves to go to bed, sure that she shouldn't have had even a sip of that red wine she found on the counter, let alone the whole bottle, but stops when she sees Tony sitting on the stairs.

"Hey," she says quietly.

"Hi," Tony answers simply.

She sits down next to him and breathes a sigh. "You okay?" she asks.

"It's all my fault," Tony replies, looking over to her with wet blue eyes. "I was supposed to look after Jack."

Rose slides her arm around him. "No, sweetheart," she exhales, pulling him closer and kissing the top of his head. "You couldn't have done anything," she murmurs quietly, both to him and herself. She blinks her eyes shut and unbidden tears roll down her cheeks, but she hasn't the energy to really cry. "In the end, none of us could."

"Is he really still alive?" Tony asks, pulling back from her, referring to what the Doctor said in the other room. He must have heard him - the Doctor certainly had been loud enough. "What the Doctor said … he said Jack's still alive. Is that true?"

Rose nods slowly and sadly. "Yeah," she answers.

Tony's eyebrows tilt in confusion. "So why is everyone giving up?"

Rose almost laughs at how simply he sees the world. He's right, she thinks. She tells him the only thing she can think to say. "Mum once told me … a long, long time ago, when I was a lot younger, that sometimes it's easier to give up than to risk trying and failing," she replies slowly. She doesn't want to give up, of course, but it seems like the only thing left to do.

"It'll be okay," Tony suddenly says, standing up and frowning at her. "You and the Doctor, you always save the day in the end. Jack's still alive, that means you can save him," he sniffs hard, trying to be strong.

Rose smiles sadly at him from where she sits on the stairs. "Not this time," she croaks back.

Tony sniffs again, bringing down his brows and glaring at her through his tears. Then he storms away from her, up the stairs.

* * *

Between them, Pete, the Doctor and the President all set the date of the memorial for the first non-rainy day all week. The grey clouds move away from London, and the rain finally stops, but the white overcast of March still remains. The sky occasionally growls in displeasure, much like the TARDIS, lately. It's been exactly fifteen days since Jack didn't come home from school. Two weeks. The most important thing that Rose and the Doctor ever did together, all undone in two weeks.

The Doctor stands in front of a full-length mirror in their bedroom aboard the TARDIS, in a plain black suit, his tie hanging undone from his crisp white collar. He's never owned a funeral suit before, but he hates it. He looks older than he's ever looked before, he thinks - and he's looked like a seventy-something-year-old human man before. It's a loss of light, in his eyes. He lacks the ability to quirk up the corners of his mouth.

"Come here," Rose speaks up from behind him, and he realizes that he's been staring at his reflection in the mirror for near-on ten minutes now.

He turns to face her, and sees her smart black sweater, over a black suit shirt, and plain black slacks. She's not wearing makeup, he notices, as she comes closer and takes the two lengths of his black tie in her hands. Her long hair has been tied back in a simple low ponytail, and without it framing her face, he can see all the lines that he knows weren't there before Jack disappeared.

"I love you," he says softly, hoping to comfort her. It's the only thing he can think to say, at this point. There's no 'It'll be alright', no 'There's still hope'.

Rose doesn't smile, and wraps one side of the tie around the other. "I love you too," she says simply, no warmth in the words they both remember waiting so long to say aloud.

They say it because all they have left is each other. And already, they need to be able to tell themselves that there's still that - that there will always be that love left to carry them through. But after Jack, they don't know if being Rose and the Doctor, together in the TARDIS, is enough. There's a gaping, bloody, Jack-shaped hole in their hearts.

Rose ties his tie perfectly, pulls it snug to his collar, and slides her hand down his chest until it falls away. Briefly, she meets his eyes, and immediately feels her own eyes stinging with tears. She swallows thickly. "Take my hand?" she asks, her voice a hushed whisper.

The Doctor sniffs hard at the tears that well up in him, and slides his hand into hers. Together, they leave the TARDIS.

Today is the day they say goodbye to their son.

* * *

It's as they pull open the front door of the Tyler mansion that a long black sedan pulls up before them. They step out, fully expecting it to be the car that Pete has hired to take them to Buckingham - but Pete stops short behind them, with Jackie beside him, and Tony beside her. The Tyler family stops, a band of five, all in smart black suits, all of them with barely hidden grief on their faces.

The Doctor is at the front of the group, with Rose at his side, and he suddenly squeezes her hand tightly, pulling up just as quickly as Pete.

"What is it?" Jackie asks worried, fearing he's having some kind of emotional crisis, now of all times.

The Doctor draws a sharp breath, eyes fixed on the car as its engine dies. "I feel …" he swallows.

Rose's eyes widen at him. "Oh, god," she whispers.

The back door of the black sedan swings open, and out comes a shiny polished shoe, crunching the pebbles as it hits them. A man climbs out of the car, blonde head first, and the Doctor squeezes Rose's hand a little bit tighter, which shouldn't be possible. The man stands up, and he's shorter than the Doctor by a few inches, but makes up for it with intense brown eyes that could turn embers to ice. He smoothes down his tie, looks to the doorstep and glances among the people stood there, all staring at him. His eyes finally settle on the Doctor.

Then he reaches back into the open back seat of the car.

And guides out a groggy, four-year-old boy by the hand.

"Jack," Rose suddenly says, around the same time as the little boy realizes where he is, and the matching brown eyes of mother and son widen at once, as soon as they lay eyes on one another. "Oh my god, Jack!" she shouts, grabbing with her free hand for where the Doctor holds her other one. She forcibly pries his hand from hers, and rushes forward.

"Mummy!" Jack squeals loudly, surging forward on his short legs. "_Mummy_!" he shouts, energy flooding him, and begins to slip his small, sweaty hand from the larger one enclosing it.

The Doctor's brow is furrowed hard, and his jaw clenched, though his own eyes are wide, flickering from his son to the man holding his hand. He reaches, for a moment, to stop Rose, then drops his hand again. He watches as the man with the familiar face releases Jack's hand, and as his son potters into his mothers arms, as Rose's knees hit the pebbles and her arms wrap around their little boy. He hears Jackie starting to cry, and Pete speaking in tight-throated awe. Tony rushes forward too, to join Rose and Jack.

"Oh my god," Rose sobs into Jack's little shoulder, and Jack's little fingers grasp handfuls of her black sweater, and he starts to cry, "I've got you," she gasps, tears slipping down her cheeks as she stares with wide eyes at nothing in particular. "I've got you, Jack," she repeats, and the Doctor can almost read her mind. She's never going to let him go again, he thinks - _good._

Jack manages to get his small arms around Rose's neck, and he starts crying too. "M'sorry, mummy!" he apologizes through his tears, his lower lip rolling over and his face turning red as he scrunches his face. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he continues, burying his face in her shoulder. His tiny hand finds her ponytail and clumsily strokes it. "S'okay, mummy," he soothes. She laughs weakly into him.

The Doctor's eyes dart between the reassuring image of Jack nestled safely in Rose's arms, and the dark eyes of his old friend. His face clouds over warily, and his bristled posture relaxes marginally when Tony taps Rose on the shoulder, bringing her to look up and notices the calm but clear standoff between her husband and the man that brought her baby home. She quickly lifts her son from the ground and hastily carries the little boy back toward the Doctor, away from the stranger. She quickly deciphers the stormy expression on his face, and moves to a long familiar position near him - just safely behind his shoulder.

Tony takes a position right in front of her, beside the Doctor. He forces his expression to match the Doctor's.

Slowly, the Doctor opens his mouth and says, "Thank you," before even considering saying anything else.

The man by the black car gives a sort of placating smile. "Anyone else would do the same," he begins amicably and charmingly.

There's a pause.

"Rose," the Doctor says suddenly.

"Yeah?" she answers quickly.

"Take Jack inside," he tells her gently, his voice serious but soft.

"Daddy," Jack says quietly, and the Doctor tears his eyes away from the Master, to look over his shoulder to the tear-streaked face of his son. A smile immediately threatens to overtake his face. Jack is home, he thinks. Finally, finally home. "Love you," the little boy sniffs.

The Doctor ducks in and puts a kiss on Jack's cheek. "I love you too, Jack. I love you so much," he replies at a whisper, before pulling back and giving Rose a stern look. "Now go inside," he tells her again, before glancing to Rose's parents. "All of you. I'll be in shortly." Tony tenses up at the Doctor's side, and he gives the boy a slightly more tentative expression. "You too, Tony," he adds, placing a hand on Tony's shoulder.

The Master waits patiently, the smile remaining on his face, as Rose fixes the Doctor with a warning look, and hesitantly turns away. Pete puts his hand on his daughter's back and guides her back into the house, opening the door for her. As she goes, Jack watches the Doctor over her shoulder, his tears still on his cheeks, but his crying momentarily ceased. He looks worried, to the Doctor's eye. Pete holds the door open as Rose steps in, and then as Jackie follows. Tony reluctantly follows his mother, frowning disconcertedly. Pete gives the Doctor an understanding look, pressing his lips into a thin line, and nods finally, before going inside and shutting the door.

The Doctor turns again, to see the Master standing in the same spot, hands tucked behind his back. He draws a slow breath, tired from the last fifteen days. "Long time no see," he says tightly, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets, still standing on the dull porch, his head tilted back somewhat.

He's wearing actual suit shoes for a change - he just couldn't bring himself to wear trainers today, to go to his son's funeral - and they are placed shoulder-width apart, because he's afraid that a strong wind could just knock him over, for how lightheaded he feels.

"It is you, then," the Master replies, one half of his mouth turning up slowly, but the expression doesn't quite look right on him. It's almost a bittersweet look. "Doctor," he adds, tilting his head expectantly. The Doctor nods slowly, and the Master's smile widens for a beat. "Not quite the same telepathic signature," he notes thoughtfully.

The Doctor manages a weak smile of his own. "Yeah … instantaneous biological human-Time Lord metacrisis," he explains with a flippant nod.

The Master momentarily looks surprised, if not _impressed, _then pushes up his lower lip, mulling this over. "I thought I was the last one," he furrows his brow, looking away briefly.

The Doctor's brow goes up suddenly. "Oh," he blurts, face softening. "Right. Of course. Well, technically you still are," he goes on casually, thinking about this.

He doesn't need to ask what happened to the rest of the Time Lords - he's always thought, before, that there simply weren't any survivors of the Time War, in this universe, but now he sees that that could never be the case. Someone would have had to survive; someone would have had to put the war in a time lock.

"Is this where you hid?" the Master asks slowly. "You hid here, on Earth, from the war? That's not very like you," he smiles easily.

"No," the Doctor says quickly. "No, it's not," he agrees, "And I didn't hide. I wasn't here. I was in another universe," he simplifies - not that he's ever simplified for the Master before; his old friend is brilliant, a genius, in fact, but he doesn't really want to go into details right now.

The Master catches on anyway. "You mean you're from another universe," he deduces calmly.

The Doctor immediately smiles. "How'd you know?" he manages.

"You died in the war. You told me you were going to time lock the war, but you wanted to go back for Arkytior," he explains slowly, looking down, his expression momentarily a mixture between nostalgia and grief. "All temporal travel was disrupted, and your TARDIS was destroyed before you even hit Gallifrey's atmosphere."

The Doctor nods with a sigh. He laughs sadly. "Sounds like me."

The Master laughs too, through his nose. "Always the martyr," he agrees.

Then something occurs to the Doctor, and hesitantly, he clears his throat and rocks on his feet. "You, er … you don't hear these _drums, _sometimes, do you?" he queries carefully.

The Master arches a brow at him, curiously. "No. Never," he brings up that one side of his mouth again. "You always _were_ on about drums. Why, what kind of drums?" he shakes his head.

The Doctor's eyes widen momentarily and he gives a weak laugh. "Er, nevermind. Forget I asked," he pulls one hand from his pocket and rubs the back of his neck. "So how …" he gets a bad taste in his mouth just thinking about it, "How did you find Jack? Where was he?" he licks his lower lip, his features setting harshly. "Who took him?" he adds meaningfully. He wants to know. He wants to find out who did this and make them suffer.

The Master appraises the Doctor with a sudden cold look in his eyes. "It's not important," he replies stiffly. "They've been dealt with."

The Doctor doesn't know what it says about him that his mind immediately supplies, _whatever the Master did, they deserved. _He draws a shaking breath and nods slowly, looking away.

"He's a clever boy, your Jack," the Master supplies casually, "he was sending out distress wavelengths you could pick up all the way from Rio."

"_Rio_?" the Doctor blurts, furrowing his brow again and fixing his eyes on the Master. "What were you doing in _Rio?_"

The Master is momentarily taken aback. "I _live _in Rio," he answers defensively.

The Doctor shakes his head at his old friend. "You're the last of the Time Lords," he thinks aloud. "And you just … live on Earth? Doing what?" he presses.

"Bit of this, bit of that. Got a wife, got a house - several houses, in fact. It's all very domestic," he shrugs. "On Thursdays I go bowling," he adds teasingly.

The Doctor's eyes nearly bug out of his head. He sputters helplessly for a moment, before bursting out with, "But what about the cybermen? You saw that, a few years ago? Why didn't you step in? You've got that, that, what's-it, laser screwdriver, haven't you?" he stammers out.

The Master rolls his eyes, as if he's heard this from the Doctor a hundred times already. "What am I, humanity's babysitter?" he gives the Doctor a perplexed look. He chuckles, then turns his back to the Doctor and waves a hand over his shoulder. "Anyway, I'd best be off. Things to do," he adds vaguely.

There's a screech of tires, and the Doctor flinches, throwing his gaze toward the source of the noise - and sees several more paparazzi trucks pulling up by the front gates of the Tyler Estate. His jaw goes slack and awe washes over his face, as he wonders exactly _how _the media could know that something was up this soon.

The Master goes on, sounding smug, "And I'm sure you have other … _guests_ … to keep at bay," he chortles out. The Doctor returns his gaze to the Time Lord, just in time to see him putting one leg into the back seat of the still-running car. The Master gives a self-satisfied smile.

Suddenly, the Doctor stumbles forward, down off the porch and onto the pebbles. He stops and blurts out, "Wait," and his hands fall from his pockets, to dangle at his sides. The Master appraises him patiently. The Doctor swallows, and then asks, "Why? Why did you bring him home? Why would you do that?" he asks tersely, his face suddenly deathly serious.

The Master thinks about it for a beat, then shrugs. "Because I could," he replies. Then he grins at the Doctor. "Oh, by the way, Doctor," he says, swinging himself into the back seat of his car. His eyes flash mischievously, and the Doctor immediately gets an anxious feeling in his stomach.

The Doctor brings his brow down again, tilting his head and waiting.

"Vote Saxon," he chides happily.

The Doctor's face begins to fall, but the Master shuts his car door with a quiet thump - and the car slowly turns, then peels away up the drive. The Doctor stands there for a long while, blinking in confusion and worry. Then it occurs to him that he's sick of worrying. Finally, Jack is home. Maybe he should take a page out of the Master's book. He isn't humanity's babysitter; he's Jack's father. He manages a weak smile, before he turns and barrels into the mansion to see his son.

* * *

The paparazzi sit like squatters outside the main gates of the Tyler Mansion. A few of them climb the wall, but are quickly escorted off the property by the security staff. One photographer has to have an ambulance called for them, as they break their leg upon falling from the wall. None of them get pictures.

Jackie takes a photograph of little Jack sitting between the Doctor and Rose on a couch in the room where their TARDIS lives, all in their disheveled states - with the Doctor's tie yanked loose with Jack's snot on it, and half of Rose's hair pulled loose from her ponytail by pudgy hands, and Jack still in his rumpled school uniform, and all of them with blotchy faces from crying - and sends it to each and every newspaper and magazine in the city, with a nice email telling everyone to just _piss off and leave us alone for a few days, thanks._

Tony wraps Jack up in hugs for exactly forty minutes straight, before Pete comes and pries the older boy away, to give Rose and the Doctor some time with their son after the past two weeks. The Doctor steps out of their TARDIS with two mugs and a plastic beaker of sugary tea for them all, to see Rose sitting on one couch, watching the other couch with fascination on her face. He moves over to her, follows her line of sight, and sees Jack sprawled on his stomach on the other sofa, one arm dangling off the edge.

The Doctor puts the tea down, forgetting it, and smiles at Rose. Quietly, he asks, "What are you thinking?"

She doesn't take her eyes from Jack. "I'm thinking he must be exhausted. I don't know where he's been, or what happened to him … or who that man was," she pauses poignantly, because she suspects that it has something to do with the Doctor's past, but doesn't want to know the specifics, "but he must be absolutely exhausted."

The Doctor exhales slowly, his smile fading as he looks to Jack as well. They watch him sleeping for another ten minutes, just taking in the fact that he's finally home, before Rose gets up, goes over, and gently picks him up from the couch. He stirs a little bit, but immediately moulds to the familiar shape of Rose's body as she holds him, his chin fitting perfectly into the space between her shoulder and neck, his legs wrapping instinctively around her waist. She carries him to the red telephone box at the back of the room, and pulls the door open with one hand.

The Doctor follows her into the ship, through the console room and straight into their bedroom, as the ship hums in relief, moving their room so that they walk right into it from the control room. He begins to understand Rose's meaning when she yawns loudly and toes off her shoes. He follows suit, shedding any attire that will be uncomfortable to sleep in, as exhaustion begins to take its toll on him too.

They lie atop the duvet, sinking down into the softness of the mattress, with Jack lying comfortably between them, protected on both sides by their bodies.

Below Jack, Rose situates one ankle between the Doctor's calves, and he drapes one leg over both of theirs, just as he throws one arm over both his son and his wife. They are his to hold, his to protect.

And they're here in his arms, just where they should be.

_**The End**_


End file.
